NOTE: This is the ORIGINAL and UNEDITED version of the story, all chapters inclusive. For the up to date versions, start at the next chapter, "scene 1". Thanks for reading!
“Going live in 3, 2...”
“Greeting Equestria, this is your EU reporter Reel Quick reporting to you from Ponyville! As per usual my fellow seekers of the truth I'm on another epic search for some Equestria's darker and more closely guarded secrets. Stay posted with me or any of the other Equestrian Underground reporters for updates and excitement! - alright cut there, Flash; that should do for an introduction.”
A mottled gray unicorn with a deep blue mane peeked out from behind a small tripod camera, his face a picture of uncertainty.
“You sure about this Quick? For an epic quest locale, Ponyville feels kinda tame don't you think?”
His reporting partner broke free from his picture-perfect pose and smile and stared back with mock disbelief.
“Hark, do I sense doubt in your voice young grasshopper?”
“Oh quit it Quick, you and I both know you can do better than this. Seriously, you've been going nowhere but downhill since your last story.”
Quick's smile faded from its usual confident beam.
“Hey look, you know me and my intuition. I'm usually right- or at least mostly right” he corrected “ but this time I'm more than certain I'm on to something juicy. Come on, pack up your camera and we'll talk about this over lunch in town.”
Flash grumbled inaudibly as he enveloped the camera and its tripod in a soft white light. The assembly gently floated upwards and folded down into a small box that would leave any pony unfamiliar with this cameraman astounded and perhaps leave a few jaws hanging.
Flash slid the case into a leather pouch slung over his back and set off with a quick trot to catch up with Quick who had already taken a head start, admiring the quaint-ness of Ponyville's small-town charm. Ponyville was nothing like the big city of Manehattan where the small, brown unicorn had grown up. Everything there was so busy and fast paced that the place was riddled with secrets and mysteries to be uncovered. It was a small schoolyard dare to investigate a “haunted house” at the corner that led Quick to his future career of reporting. Not only was the house not haunted, but the old stallion who lived their prior to its being boarded up had left behind an old diary full of equestrian tales and myths. From that day forward, Quick had devoted his life to finding out the truth at all costs, which led him to a job at Equestrian Underground, a reporting agency infamous for its secrecy. EU sent reporters across Equestria to dig up secrets and fact-or-fiction myths that float around the less-explored regions of the country.
As the duo trekked deeper into Ponyville, the fields and farms clustered together and gathered into houses and apartments, stalls and stores of every variety. Ponies on their daily routes and routines bustled to and fro, buying fruits and necessities to go about their daily lives. From Quick's perspective, they were innocent bystanders, but his instincts reminded him that amongst the crowd could be any number of ponies out to prevent him from uncovering whatever it was he felt was hidden here. Quick was no stranger to mortal peril, but something about Ponyville's utter peacefulness unsettled him. This just didn't seem like the kind of place to be out to get him, which only worried him more since he was absolutely certain it was.
Quick and Flash made their way through the crowd and arrived at a small cobblestone patio littered with garden furniture and umbrellas. A suburban cafe, home of cheap food and high prices; possibly one of the few things more hated by Quick than “doubters” and his imagined autograph hounds (of which none really existed, but as far as he was concerned, they did and he hated them nonetheless).
“Do we have to eat here Flash? You know how I feel about cafes, especially ones so out in the open” Quick moaned.
“Oh quit it with your paranoia Quick, a friend of mine recommended this place, how bad can it be? After all, it's probably better than whatever fast food you had in mind. Come to think of it, I don't even think they have fast food out here.”
“Alright Flash, but this time the bill is on you, got it?”
“Gee, how generous of you, giving all that bill to me for free. With what we get paid for this, it's a miracle we can even eat in the first place, let alone travel.”
A gussied up waiter strolled out and handed them a pair of menus.
“My don't they think they're fancy today” Quick said mockingly, looking over his shoulder to see if the waiter was still watching him.
“Well, at least some of these sandwiches sound good, and look, they aren't nearly as expensive as you, yet again, assumed them to be. Guess the next 'fancy' meal is on you then, Quick.”
Quick had zoned out, his attention drawn away by the dozens of ponies, all chatting to each other about private matters, forming an incessant buzz of speech over the soft thrumming of hooves on pavement.
“How many of them do you think there are, Flash?”
“Did you hear a word I said? Wait, how many of what?”
“Conspirators, spies, agents, you know, ponies who will inevitably turn out to be dead set on stopping us from finding the truth.”
Flash let out a deep sigh.
“Not again with this, Quick. Not everypony is out to get you. This town isn't full of shadowy figures looking to silence you. You have to stop with all these conspiracy theories.”
Quick suddenly snapped back to reality and took on a much more serious tone.
“Now I'm only going to say this once, Flash. In our line of work there is a distinct pecking order of reporters. You have the muckrakers, then there's the monster hunters, the freak finders, the conspiracy theorists, and then there's us. We're the people who deal in cold, hard fact. We look for going-ons that evade the public eye, secret activities and hidden motives that drive our society.”
“I don't see what separates that from conspiracy theorists” Flash retorted.
“The difference is, those crackpots deal in theories and theories only. I deal in facts, Flash.
“Facts? You mean like that secret clan of seaponies hiding in the Las Pegasus sewers trying to flood the city?” he replied sarcastically.
“Okay, okay, so they weren't plotting to reclaim the overworld like I thought they were, but you at least owe me some credit for finding them in the first place.”
“Face it, Quick, your talents are probably better off being focused somewhere more productive. Just look at all the other stuff the reporters have brought in since; there's records of giant sea monsters, 1-headed hydras, reverse-stoning cockatrices- furthermore, Twilight Sparkle learned to time travel, Pinkie Pie can predict the future and Lyra Heartstrings has a gateway to a pocket dimension in her rear.”
“Flash, you Mane Six fanpony, only one of those things has actually been proven to be scientifically accurate, and unless you want Lyra carrying your spare film rolls, I suggest you stick with the only pony to generate real results: me.”
Flash shuddered at the thought but then burst out laughing,
“Even if I wanted to Quick, Lyra's off on her own EU 'adventure' hunting for proof of 'humans', so I guess she'd fall in your 'monster hunter' category, or at least with the 'freak finders', and even she's gotten proof of more mythical creatures than anypony else.”
“Look, Flash, I need this just as much as you do. If we can't deliver a good story back, we're out of a job- or at least you are. Boss said that if I failed one more time my options were to either pack out or join the expedition to find the mythical giant Cockatrice in the Everfree Forest and I prefer taking jobs that aren't guaranteed to end in either failure or my inability to move ever again.”
Flash was suddenly sobered at the thought. He had failed out of every photography job he had ever taken, even though it was supposedly his “special talent”. He had been forced to resort to taking up filmography, viewed by his family as the lowest of art forms.
“Alright, but what do you have in mind? What could possibly be of such secrecy and intrigue to bring you here?”
Quick looked him straight in the eyes and with the most serious expression he could muster he said one word
“Applejack”
Flash burst out laughing again.
“And you called me the Mane Six fanpony! What, do you intend to find out if she really runs a farm of talking animals?”
“I'm serious Flash.”
Flash stopped laughing.
“Dear Celestia, you really are serious about this aren't you?”
Quick took a deep breath and looked around the crowded plaza once more, small pangs of paranoia returning to him. He looked back at Flash and produced a small, dusty and torn up diary from his own bag. It was obviously much older than Flash had imagined and far more worn, but it was definitely Quick's fabled book of secrets.
“Flash, the whole reason I started this line of work was because of this journal. The unnamed pony who wrote this book was certainly off his rocker, but so far it has yet to lead me astray. You of all people know I take this book more seriously than anything else, so when I run out of ideas for good stories I randomly pick a page and go where it takes me.”
Flash stopped to think for a second, contemplating that his entire career could be resting on that very book.
“What did the book tell you about Applejack? I doubt she was even a filly when it was written.”
“Flash, this book predates Applejack by decades, there are entries in here that are older than Ponyville itself.”
“So how could she possibly be related to this book?”
“One entry in particular caught my eye. The writer makes reference to a gang of highway robbers who would attack traveling merchants and leave them with nothing more than a single apple to survive on, often out in the middle of nowhere, with not a town for miles around. When the gang was finally brought to justice and thrown in prison, the leader of the gang swore his boss would break him out, claiming he was involved with an 'Applecore Syndicate'. Now at the time, no one had even heard of the group, but as time went by, the Syndicate dissolved into urban legend and was never truly uncovered. Everypony assumed it was an idle threat, when the author took it into his own hooves to investigate, the entire gang, holed up in prison, was missing. No guards remembered them and there was no record of their escape or release. It was if they had simply vanished.”
“I still don't see how this involves Applejack, she's supposed to be the most honest pony- ever!”
“Which makes it all the more suspicious. If a secret is worth keeping, it will never be obvious, which is why I'd never take up a silly quest like looking up dirt on Rainbow Dash. The skeletons in her closet are so obvious that they can't possibly be interesting enough to report on; the end result is 'oh, wow, no surprise there' or 'definitely saw that coming', but what I have here is evidence that the Apple family is linked to one of Equestria's oldest criminal organizations!”
The last phrase was little more than a hoarse whisper, but even that sudden outburst reminded Quick he was still in public.
“How long has that waiter been watching us? Do you think it's still safe to discuss this here?”
“Quick, if this is as old as you say it is, I doubt it is nearly as dangerous. Why would they attract attention to themselves now? Taking out a pair of noponies would only make them more likely to get caught.”
“That's what scares me, Flash. The Applecore Syndicate is so secretive that it is almost unknown to the general public. Ponies don't even know it exists. Anyone who has ever crossed or tried to uncover the gang has disappeared or left financially ruined.”
Flash was genuinely intrigued at the thought of a real mystery
“So where do we start?” Flash asked with masked interest.
“Sweet Apple Acres, of course, where else?” Quick responed, matter-of-factly.
“We can't just barge onto their farm with cameras and accuse them of being embroiled in a criminal syndicate!”
“Well-”
A short, stifled grunt brought their attention to the waiter, who had returned with their meals. To Flash, the waiter wore an expression of mild annoyance, but to Quick, whose paranoia had taken root again it was an evil look, one which warned of a desperate plot on their lives. The two sat in silence eying their meals until the waiter turned and left for other customers.
“Flash, think about it; if Applejack or even the Apple family has been involved in criminal activity, we don't know how deep this goes. Why even now they might be out to stop us, poisoning our food, hiding in dark alleyways just waiting for us to slip up. Even these sandwiches could be a devious plan to end our quest.”
“Quick, we haven't even so much as started this 'quest' of yours, let alone gotten so deeply involved that we're being marked for elimination.”
Flash stared at his sandwich again, his uncertainty taking over. What if Quick was right? He didn't know what he was getting into, and he certainly didn't want to find out sooner than necessary.
“I don't think I'm hungry anymore, Quick. Let's just wrap these to go, pay, and get out of here.” He responded, trying to hide a small hint of fear in his voice.
“You never can be too careful, Flash. Let's go while we still can.”
Quick scooped up the sandwiches in a blur of magic and slid them into his pack, looking once again over his shoulder at the crowd behind him. The waiter, those two mares snacking in the corner, why even the birds in the trees could be watching him at this very moment. To him, this conspiracy didn't simply go deep, it enveloped all of his surroundings, consuming everything around and turning it against him. Flash suddenly stopped and brought a small object from the ground up to eye level.
“Would you look at this, Quick, you'd think in a town this peaceful, there'd be less of a litter problem.”
“What do you have there, Flash? What is that?”
“It's an apple core, fresh by the looks of it. Somepony must have just dropped it. Still has one seed stuck in it too.”
“Ugh, just the thought of apples is making me sick, Flash. Just put it in the trash where it belongs and let's get going.”
Quick and Flash began to meander their way through the marketplace back to the outskirts of Ponyville where Sweet Apple Acres stood, it's trees lining the horizon like green clouds. Quick was taking in all his surroundings at once, his eyes darting from stall to stall, pony to pony, sizing each and every one of them up. That one with the glasses could be hiding a weapon in his bag, or that sign overhead could be rigged to fall when they walked underneath. But of course none of this ever actually happened, every scenario simply played out in his head slowly distracting him from the overall task at hand. Flash's voice brought him back once more.
“Wow, look at all these market stalls.”
“You know, Flash, it kinda surprises me.”
“What does, Quick?”
“Aren't you paying attention? Look around, tell me what you see.”
“Stalls, lots and lots of stalls. Fruits and vegetables, clothing, just about everything you could want, really.”
“Yea, so tell me what you don't see.”
Flash thought on this for a moment.
“I can't really think of anything, there's so much here.”
“Apples, Flash, apples! There's not a single apple vendor around.”
“Well naturally, Sweet Apple Acres is the primary supplier of all apples in Ponyville, if not the entire region.”
“Of course Apple Acres sells apples, but aren't you in the least bit curious why no other apple merchants ever show up?”
“Oh not this again. Quick, just because no one competes with Apple Acres doesn't prove a definitive conspiracy.”
“Flash, there are loads of apples across all of Equestria, some are very unique and very much in demand. Have you ever heard of Cloudsdale's famous sunbeam apples?”
“No, I can't say that I have, given that I can't fly up there to find out.”
“They're a pegasus delicacy. Very easy to grow in the clouds and very good to eat. Importing them would be a matter of simply carrying a small crate down from Cloudsdale to Ponyville, renting a stall, and making a fortune in a matter of minutes,”
“So why don't they do that?”
“Can't you see Flash? Apple vendors are afraid of selling here.”
“Afraid of what exactly?”
“Here, let me enlighten you.”
Quick walked up to a nearby vendor who was selling a wide variety of fruits. His wares ranged from tropical to local and covered almost every fruit you could think of off the top of his head.
“Fresh fruit here, get your fruit, we've got just about every fruit you could ever hope for! Two bits to the grapefruit, three for a sack of plums!” The vendor was shouting his pitch out over the heads of all the ponies shuffling to and fro, hoping for another customer. The merchant noticed Quick approaching and suddenly addressed him.
“Ah, good stallion, you must try my fruits, they are the best around! I've got nearly everything you could possibly want!”
“Yes, about that good sir” Quick suddenly replied smoothly, his social skills kicking in again. “You claim to have every fruit I could want.”
“Indeed I do sir, what'll it be? We have grapes, canteloupes, kiwis, you name it!”
“Well I'm not from around here and I'm looking for some apples.”
“Are you some kind of wiseguy pony-type-fellow? We don't have any apples here, you gotta go out to Apple Acres for those. You know, the place with all the apple trees you can see from almost anywhere in Ponyville.”
“Allow me to clarify. I'm looking specifically for sunbeam apples, and I'd be very interested in buying a few.”
“I'm sorry, but I just can't sell those around here. It's bad luck ya know, selling apples in Ponyville.”
Quick's assuring smile quickly faded away and an intense look came over his face.
“I told you. I'm very interested in purchasing some sunbeam apples. I would love to buy some or would at least like a decent explanation as to why not.” With every word he spoke a very subtle glow appeared over his horn and a small spark gleamed in his eyes. It was a warm comforting glow, and as Flash watched it he simply couldn't help but listen to every word Quick spoke, as if it were of the utmost importance.
The vendor's indignant attitude suddenly gave way to a much more peaceable tone. “Like I said, I can't sell any sunbeam apples around here. Every vendor knows what happens to anypony who does. They disappear, and they don't ever come back.”
As subtly as the glow appeared, it faded away, and Quick's smile returned again. “Thank you so very much. Here's two bits for your help.”
The vendor stared back with a confused look on his face, as if he didn't quite know what was going on anymore. He shook his head and resumed his sales pitch as if nothing had ever happened. Having just cleared his head of any stray thoughts, Flash's attention suddenly turned to what the vendor said.
“What in the name of Celestia just happened back there, Quick?”
Quick responded coolly, “when a reporter needs information, sometimes it helps just to know how to ask properly.”
“Quick, I feel like I know so little about you? I mean, we just got stuck together for this report, it's not like I know you or anything. And seriously, what kind of name is Reel Quick anyways?”
“Hey, your name is Flash Pan, so don't start insulting my name for one. Two, that's just my stage name, you know, an assumed identity for the sake of remaining anonymous.”
“Then what's your real name, Quick?”
“I already told you, Flash. Any secret worth keeping is never obvious.”
“Gee, thanks. So I suppose we're headed out to Sweet Apple Acres now?”
“Are you crazy, Flash” to which Flash mumbled an appropriate retort under his breath, “we can't just go marching up to Apple Acres with this sort of information anymore. Now we need proof! If anypony showed up in Ponyville selling apples and disappeared mysteriously, there's bound to be evidence somewhere. We're going to the Ponyville Historic Records Center. There's bound to be some kind of clue there.”
Flash suddenly contemplated the change in plans. No more Sweet Apple Acres meant no chance at some apples, though he sincerely wondered how he could simultaneously accuse somepony of a dastardly crime and ask for free food as well. His train of thought was suddenly cut off by a sharp pain to the back of his head. Flash cried out in pain and stopped to look for what hit him.
“Yeow, something nailed me in the back of the head, Quick.”
The two ponies stopped just at the edge of an intersection between two narrow market roads. Flash turned around and raised another apple core into view.
“Another apple core, somepony must have thrown this at me. It's still got some seeds left in it too. There's two this time.”
“Strange, maybe there's some kind of connection.” Quick began pondering the situation and took a few casual steps forward. Flash was eying the apple again.
“That or a habitual litterbug, don't you think, Qui- look out!”
Flash leaped forward and knocked Quick onto the ground, both sliding forward in a dust cloud a few feet ahead. The abrupt silence was followed by a thundering roar and crash as a hay cart loaded with masonry stones rolled down the alleyway and crashed into a nearby wall. Both Flash and Quick got back up and dusted themselves off, chests heaving from such a near-disaster.
“Flash, somepony is certainly trying to stop us, we must hurry before they succeed.”
“Oh, Quick, I'm sure it was an accident or something. This could have happened to anypony at anytime. You have to control yourself, you're acting like a scared little filly, fearing monsters hiding in every shadow.”
“You can't be too careful, Flash. Anypony here could be out for us now. By this time they probably already know we're on to them and are already scheming to stop us.”
“I still find this all hard to believe, Quick. I mean, seriously. Applejack? We're talking about a pony who has saved all of Equestria, and multiple times too! She's the element of honesty! How can somepony who represents the very essence of honesty be hiding a massive criminal organization?”
“That's what I aim to find out, Flash. We're going to get to the bottom of this and by the time I'm through, everypony will know the truth of the Applecore Syndicate.”
Having abandoned the bustling marketplaces of Ponyville's center, the pair of stallions found themselves at the steps of the town records building. The old-style marble construction loomed before them, decorated with intricate reliefs of pony scribes and historians of amazing quality. Atop the stark white steps, in front of the ornate wooden doors stood a pair of unmoving, unflinching stallion guards, their manes cut back into identical slicked up mohawks. Any casual observer would clearly be turned off by their fearsome appearance which in short summed itself up in two words: keep out.
“Awfully tight security for a public building, don't you think Flash?”
“Agreed, and worse still, I fail to imagine any possible reason as to why.” Flash responded dismally.
“Perhaps if we avoid eye contact they won't notice us.” Quick responded with a hint of sarcasm.
“Yes, a pair of stallions, dusty from their near death experiences in the public market will look perfectly normal ascending the steps of a records building. We'll fit right in, Quick.”
Without a proper response, Quick began his ascent with Flash a short distance behind him. He braced himself mentally for the inevitable confrontation to come, nearing the guards whose apparent purpose was solely to halt their progress. He loomed ever closer and could feel their gaze boring into him. Steeling his nerves, Quick made the final step and stood before the great wooden doors. He took a deep breath. Quick placed his forehoof on the gleaming metal handle and paused.
Nothing.
Quick nervously swung his head from side to side, his eyes darting between the two guards, a thick tension in the air.
Still nothing.
“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going inside mister?”
The gruff voice of the left guard suddenly snapped Quick back into reality once more. Realizing that he wasn't about to be mauled in a two-on-one brawl, he took decided not to take his fortune for granted and pushed aside the doors, now surprisingly quite a lot smaller than he initially remembered, and stepped into the main lobby.
Flash quickly caught up and stood beside Quick in front of the main desk.
“You weren't about to simply leave me to those two guards were you?”
“No, no. I figured that if you got in over your head I'd be there to bail you out.”
“Or run for your life?”
“Oh please, Quick, have a little faith in me, just this once.”
Remembering the task at hand, Quick made his way to the front desk.
“Excuse me ma'am, but might you know where we could find the catalog of archived newspapers?”
The secretary looked up from her paperwork and stared at Quick from over a pair of half-moon spectacles. Her voice was dry and monotonous.
“I'm sorry sir-”
“Sirs” corrected Flash.
“Yes, well I'm sorry, sirs, but the newspaper archives are currently off-limits to visitors.”
“I thought this was a public building, how could records be off-limits?” Quick responded swiftly.
The secretary paused for a moment and looked about in seemingly random directions.
“We've been having issues with visitors stealing articles for their personal collections.” She replied with a hint of uncertainty in her voice, perhaps, as Quick noted, with an even slighter hint of fear; of what he couldn't identify.
“Ma'am, I don't think you understand. Me and my friend would very much like to know where to find the archived newspapers. Now could you please help us locate them.”
A warm glow came over Quick's horn once again and the secretary stared back almost lost for words.
“I apologize again, sir, but the rear wing has been locked off by my superiors. I don't have the key.”
“Very well, Ma'am. It would do well if you forgot we were here today. Wouldn't do to have anyone looking for us, now would it?”
There was no response to the secretary, who stared back as blankly as before.
“Let's go, Flash, there's nothing more for us here.”
Flash was almost as lost for words as the stupefied secretary.
“But aren't going to try to get into the rear wing or something?”
“No, no. I think we have all that we needed for the moment.”
This statement puzzled Flash, but he knew better than to argue with Quick.
“Where to now then? If we're giving up on our hunt for incriminating evidence, what then should we do?”
Quick was already descending the marble steps. He stopped and turned his head towards Flash and the two guards that stood guarding the doorway.
“We're done for today. Now let's find ourselves a room for the night and turn in.”
This response left Flash even more confused than before.
Of course,
With a small puff of purple flame, a tightly bundled scroll marked with the EU official seal dropped from the space just above Quick's head. He calmly took hold of the scroll in midair and unraveled it pensively before him. Quick pored over the text wordlessly, leaving a dumbfounded Flash to only wonder what was going on.
“Ok, Quick, can you let back in the loop here or something?” He asked at last, finally being fed up with Quick's silence.
“This, my friend, is a private letter from Singe, EU's official maildragon.”
“Maildragon?”
“Twilight Sparkle isn't the only pony in Equestria with a maildragon you know. They're not common but they are highly reliable. She tracked us to within an inch of our actual location.” He paused for a moment, then immediately added “and before you ask, yes, I was expecting this.”
“So then what does it say? If this is word from on high, it must certainly be important, right?”
“Well, for starters, it's not good news. EU's chief-in-staff caught wind of our exploits and she's not happy. Says, and I quote, that we're on a 'wild goose chase' which can only end in 'a significant waste of time and resources'. This coming from the very pony who hunted down the lost tribe of zebras that had supposedly discovered the secret to everlasting life. Referring to this project, which could very well rewrite perhaps not only the entire history of Ponyville, but all of Equestria, as a waste of time. Well that's a serious implication, Flash” Quick let out with a heaving sigh.
“Well, Quick, what if she's right? I mean, we've been at this all day and we have no solid evidence at all. So far all we have to back up the story is a small collection of rumors and suspicions with no real founding. What's the motive? Why would such a thing exist in such a peaceful town?”
“You don't get it, Flash, this is my life's work. If you fail out of this project, you can always go record films with somepony else; you're good at what you do, but if I fail out of this project, I'm done. This is, or was, my last chance, and that was my final warning. For me, this is all or nothing. My reputation is on the line. I'm balancing on being either a respectable and notorious reporter or a complete flop who can only scrounge up blurry photos and half-baked plots.”
An awkward silence ensued causing Flash to eye the ground with uncertainty. He had heard of Quick before and had secretly looked up to him as being the model of success. Ending up his camerapony was not sheer luck or chance, but a pursuit worthy of the most devoted of fans, though he would never admit this. He had tried to hard to keep Quick from knowing his true feelings, but at this point, he wondered if he had tried too hard. Any secret worth keeping is never obvious he had said, but this secret wasn't that important, was it? Quick had finally started to show the cracks in his confidence. Flash finally broke the silence.
“Alright, alright. Suppose you're on to something. Let's look at this from a new perspective. You're the reporter here; you have experience with this stuff. How do we build the foundation for a credible case here?”
Flash's sudden change of heart left Quick thinking for a moment. He was right, this entire case stood on an unstable foundation of feeble evidence. They had to build a solid argument with real and supportable evidence if they were to continue this project.
“Ok, you're right. We need to rethink this case” Quick admitted half-heartedly, “if we want to so much as start this case, we need to work at it from the right angles. Normally for a conspiracy theory to be validated you need a few key details. First, you need a motive. Why would anypony or any ponies want to build a criminal organization from the ground up? What possible gain is there? From a motive we can find actions that pursue this motive. Any organization this large has to leave hoofprints behind somewhere. We need evidence that somepony somewhere has done something to somepony else and once we find that we can link it all back together. Once we put together enough of these little actions here and there we can link them all together. And when that's all said and done, we make one final stab, Flash. We go right for the core of this Applecore and we find the pony behind all this.”
This sudden surge of confidence left Quick gasping for air and Flash contemplating what would come next. Before he could formulate a response, Quick started again.
“So if we want evidence, we need to get to those archived news reports. We need time, and seclusion and clearly somepony doesn't want us to do that. So you tell me, Flash. How do we get in that room with nopony else noticing?”
Quick finished this last question with his trademark smirk, a look that meant trouble for anypony even thinking of getting in his way. Flash had already caught on to his plans.
“So, Quick, you lead the way. Just let me know when and where this is happening.”
“I think you already know, Flash. Right here. As for when, I suppose this plan leaves us a few hours to kill. Care to help me find a place to stay for the night?”
“Gladly.”
Both stallions continued on their way, making a point to avoid the writhing masses of marketgoers, who at this point were beginning to look far from friendly at this point. Quick's natural suspicions of everypony was beginning to wear on the pair, and even Flash's nerves were beginning to fray. Here and there a casual observer would smile at them as they passed by, a common occurrence twisted by their minds into a deadly threat. Did this little town in the heart of Equestria really hide one of the land's deadliest crime syndicates? Could something so wicked even exist in the first place? At this point, Flash wasn't sure anymore. Perhaps somepony out there really was out for their hides. Maybe they were no longer the ones hunting, but rather the ones being hunted.
Quick's excursion led them past the marketplace and through some of the calmer sectors of the city. All along the way, the two decided to take their minds off the situation by pointing out famous Ponyville destinations and plans to enjoy themselves if they were ever here casually instead of on business. Flash suggested grabbing some sweets from the local delicatessen, Sugarcube Corner, but was quickly shot down by Quick who reminded him how easy it is to poison a cake when they weren't looking. Even offering to settle for something not freshly baked left Quick easily pointing out every potential and fatal flaw in that plan.
As their journey continued, the crowds quickly thinned out and the buildings subsided into cottages. The cobblestone roads dissolved into dirt paths, and the entire city-aura about Ponyville made way for the rural setting of its outskirts. Here Quick stopped at a small inn boasting the views from their rooms and their competitive rates.
“This looks perfect, Flash. It's so far out of the way, nopony would ever suspect a pair of city-journalists would make this their rest stop.”
Flash wondered just how cautious Quick was willing to be at their expense, but thought better of it.
The inn was surprisingly roomier on the inside than it appeared, and the rooms reflected the rural style, being lit by lanterns hung on the walls and having beds composed of little more than a wooden frame, a pile of hay, and a thin blanket.
A one-up from sleeping on the floor, thought Flash.
“Alright, Flash. I think it's about time we,” Quick paused for a forced chuckle, “hit the hay.”
“Gee, you're so funny, Quick. Bet it took you an hour to think that one up.”
“No, but it took me quite a lot more time to plan this all out, so we'd better do it right the first time.”
“Speaking of plans, you spent the whole way here specifically not telling me what we're doing, so I suppose now would be the best time to do so. Sunset is only about an hour away, you know.”
“Ok, ok, but let's keep this quiet unless their listening.” Quick replied, suddenly shifting to a hoarse whisper.
“If we want to get into that sealed-off room, we're going to need to break in the old-fashioned way: by cover of darkness. As far as anypony is concerned, we're staying here in this old inn, and we're going to keep them thinking that until we get back. Once we get in the archives, we're going to gather all the articles we need, you're going to photograph all the important pages, and then we're getting out of there as quickly as possible. All in all, we should be able to get back before sunrise. This gives us a solid eight hours of total darkness at the minimum.”
“You know, as illegal as it sounds, this might actually be crazy enough to work, assuming this place actually has what we need.”
“Of course the information is there, Flash. Why else would they guard it?”
“I don't know, but for the same reason, why wouldn't they simply destroy it instead?”
“That's a good question to which I don't have a good answer, Flash. Destroying public records would be easy, but I suppose, if we're lucky, they never thought to do that.”
“This could easily be an elaborate trap, Quick, and I'm not usually the one to hold your suspicions, but this sounds like it might be too good of a plan.”
“Well it's the only one we have, and it will have to do. At this point, we either get what we need or fail miserably, not help me stuff these covers.”
The setup was simple, yet effective and believable. A lantern, carefully positioned in the front of the room cast shadows of both beds on the curtains on the far wall. To any outside observer looking in, the beds were seemingly filled by two tired stallions resting after a long trip, but in fact contained nothing more than some bunched up piles of hay and some other odds and ends found in the room.
Quick and Flash slid out the rear window, past the drawn curtains which so cleverly gave away their false positions, and stole across the fields behind the inn back towards the town which, as far as Quick was concerned, was out to kill them.
It wasn't long before the two stallions had re-entered the inner workings of Ponyville, and avoiding the streetlights and eyes of passerby s was growing ever harder to accomplish. They had hardly gotten half way to their destination when Quick quietly noted that the streets were far too lit to proceed normally.
“What do you suppose we should do? It doesn't help to have everypony knowing we're out and about at this time of night.” Flash responded, acknowledging the importance of remaining unseen.
Quick wordlessly crept across a shadowed street and made a small gesture for Flash to do likewise. When they arrived at their destination, Flash found a small hay cart covered in a tarp.
“You don't plan on stealing this, do you Quick?”
“Not stealing, Flash, we're only going to borrow it until further notice. I doubt the owner would mind, knowing the peace of mind we'll be bringing him. Here, you get in the hay pile and I'll cover my face and pull the rest of the way.”
Quick produced from his pack a small woven hat and placed it over his head, shading both his face and covering his horn.
“Besides, they're looking for two unicorns and not a single earthpony farmer.”
Flash sighed and nodded in agreement, hoisting himself into the back of the cart and carefully covering himself in hay.
“How does it look, Quick?”
“Can't see a single bit of you. I'm going now, so get ready for the cart to shift.”
“Got it.”
Quick assumed the pulling position normal to any farmer who couldn't magically push the cart otherwise. The harness was a little loose on him, but he managed anyways, being slightly more concerned about just how heavy the cart was beginning to feel.
The wooden hay cart made surprisingly little noise considering its condition, and despite the uneven nature of the road, the pair moved along without even the slightest sound. From inside the haystack, Flash wondered if this was more of Quick's journalist magic, but decided such a thing couldn't be possible. After all, he rarely saw Quick use any magic, let alone anything as complicated as a silencing spell.
Before too much time had passed, Flash heard Quick whispering to him from the front of the cart.
“Drat, those two guards are still out here, would you believe it? There must really be some important information in there, otherwise we'd be wasting our time trying to crack this nut.”
And indeed the archives were still being patrolled by the same stallion guards as before who had seemingly and unflinchingly held their positions all afternoon and into the night. Normally a small hay cart approaching the archives at this hour of the night would have sparked their attention, but neither heard the cart come as far as it did, nor did they see the cart quickly shift down an adjacent alleyway without a sound.
“Alright, Flash, plan B. Out of the cart, we're going in the back way.”
When Flash poked his head out of the haystack, he found himself up against the brick-laid back wall of the archives.
“How in the name of Celestia did you manage to get around to the back of this place unseen?”
“I took a detour, Flash, and I doubt we'll find getting back any easier either.”
“Well how do you intend to get in from here? This is a sheer wall and it goes up quite a ways. Plus the only entrance not on the roof is well guarded.”
Quick gave his typical sly smile and removed his hat.
“I still have a few tricks up my mane. Think you can manage to climb a few sets of stairs?”
“Stairs? What stairs?”
Almost in response to this question, Quick began to produce another spell, a particularly complicated one by the look on his face. As he did, a few bricks within the wall began to glow softly and the mortar around them started to ripple like water. Slowly and laboriously, each glowing brick started to slide out of the wall slightly, forming an impromptu set of stairs, though only about an inch or two wide.
“Where do you learn these spells, Quick? I've never seen anything like it.” Flash whispered back in astonishment.
Quick looked around again, as if he was checking for an audience to their conversation.
“I modified most of them from simple practical spells the owner of this notebook of mine had jotted down for personal use. A spell to realign bricks that had been laid wrong, a spell to fix squeaky door hinges, a spell to help remember things forgotten, which works surprisingly well for hypnosis for some reason, among other little tricks I'll have to show you one day.”
“Wow, Quick, I was half expecting you to tell me it was a secret or something.”
“I guess you're right, but if I don't come out of this alive there are only two possibilites as I see it. Either you make it out and carry on my legacy, or you go with me and take the secrets to your grave as well.”
“What a pleasant thought that is, Quick. Might as well just pre-purchase your tombstone at this rate.”
This sarcastic remark left Quick a little taken aback, meeting only with a simple reply.
“Well when you die unexpectedly I'm certain they won't remember you nearly as well as 'here lies the great secret hunter, Reel Quick, who died doing pursuing his dreams'”.
“You don't seriously have a tombstone picked out and waiting already, do you?”
This was met with another awkward silence, broken at last by Quick.
“Well, let's not waste any more time. I saw some skylights on the ceiling of the archives when we went in the first time, so I suppose they will do for a quick and easy entrance.”
The makeshift staircase proved to be just as narrow as it looked, leaving just about enough room for half of one hoof, forcing both stallions to balance awkwardly as they hopped from one brick to the next, hoping the freshly re-solidified mortar held strong enough to support their weight. By the time they reached the top, Flash could have sworn he was developing a case of vertigo.
The roof of the archives was nearly as ornate as the front steps. Every surface was dotted with small golden spikes, presumably to discourage birds from landing and taking roost. Just ahead, a single apple, bright red and almost glowing in the moonlight, rested on the tip of one of the spikes.
“Another apple, Flash. Somepony must be trying to send us a message.”
“Yeah, keep out.” Flash whispered in reply.
Only a short distance ahead was a skylight just as Quick had predicted. Both stallions approached the small window and peered into the gloom down below.
“Lucky us,” Quick said shortly after, “we seem to be directly over the archive rooms.”
Quick eyed the simple latch holding the window shut. With the most basic of unicorn spells, he took hold of the latch from inside and unlocked the window with little more than a thought. But getting in silently would be a little more difficult.
“Wait for me to go in first, Flash, I think I know the easiest way to do this.”
Quick concentrated again, producing a spell similar to the door silencing spell and coated his hooves in a light aura.
“I hope this works as well as I planned it.” Quick then wordlessly leaped over the edge of the window frame and came crashing to the floor below.
Except there was no sound.
Any pony able to see Quick's landing would have immediately sought medical attention to check for possible hearing loss, but Flash was only slightly more concerned Quick was hurt from the fall. He didn't seem to be moving much. But Flash knew better than to shout to his friend below, lest he give away their element of surprise.
Quick, who had landed not nearly as softly as he had hoped was in quite a lot more pain than he was willing to admit. Thankfully, he was just as adept at simple painkilling spells as he was at silencing, and managed to pick himself onto his sturdy, if not slightly numbed, legs. He then dusted himself off and made eye contact with Flash. This next spell had to be a lot more complicated if he wanted to keep Flash from screaming out in pain. He gestured for Flash to wait where he was. Quick then swiftly produced his tattered notebook from his bag and shuffled through the pages for a spell that would suit his needs better. At last he found one perfect for the situation. This was a softening spell for, as he saw it, helping somepony get a better night's sleep on a stiff mattress or, if needs be, a simple wooden board as notes in the book pointed out. Taking the spell into his mind, Quick focused on a few tiles on the floor, making a small square area glow softly. He tested the ground to see if the spell worked and was surprised to find the tiles as soft as a down pillow despite their solid appearance. Motioning to Flash, he indicated the area to land and started work on the silencing spell to be safe. He gave the signal for Flash to jump and gave a reassuring nod.
To Flash, who was far from reassured that the fall wouldn't snap all four of his legs on impact (an awful lot of broken legs to have, by the way), the motion to jump was the last thing he wanted. He had been hoping Quick would magically summon a ladder or slide or anything else than a plummet to the ground below, but if he had done it, Flash figured it wasn't impossible. Gathering his courage. Flash aimed for the spot Quick had outlined and dropped himself as neatly to it as he could. For one split second he was hurtling through space seeing as much of his life flash before his eyes as he could, but was quickly jarred to his senses by sprawling out on what felt oddly like a giant pillow. When he finally managed to lift his head from the oddly comfortable position he seemed to be in, Quick was offering him a hoof to help get back onto his own hooves. Flash reluctantly accepted, finding the ground here enticingly plush. He wondered for a moment if this was what clouds felt like, but was instantly reminded what the ground felt like when he returned his own hooves to the tiled floor.
Quick turned to Flash and whispered as quietly as possible.
“This room is big and really echo-y if you know what I mean. Try not to make too much noise.”
Flash nodded silently and took a single step forward, releasing a hoofstep that echoed so loudly and so clearly throughout the room that he was surprised it didn't set off some sort of alarm.
“I said to not make too much noise, not to make as much noise as possible” Quick whispered angrily, “I'm going to have to reinforce the silencing spells if we're going to do this, hold on.”
Quick was already getting visibly tired from all the magic, and he barely looked like he had enough strength left to reproduce a complicated spell over again, twice. With as much labor in his voice as in his magic, Quick finally responded.
“Alright, that covers both of us, now let's get this over with, shall we.” He paused for a moment and was reminded that the room outside of the moonlit shaft they were in was pitch black.
“Allow me, Quick, I can handle this one.” Flash replied before Quick could exert himself anymore.
Flash produced a small but intense light from his horn, covering a large area in front of him. He carefully adjusted the size and angle of the light to cover as much as he could without making too obvious of a difference.
Without any further delay, the two quickly made their way to a set of wooden tables in the center of the room and magically pulled from the surrounding shelves various binders full of old newspapers perfectly preserved from their various years of printing.
The process was slow and meticulous, and left both stallions rather worn out, but results started to pop up before long. Quick pointed out a few assorted pages.
“Look here, an ad for a missing pegasus last seen in Ponyville, and a sunbeam merchant too. And over here, a news article about the two famous pegasi who had invented the revolutionary method of growing them in artificial light! This has to be some kind of clue in here.”
Flash was also meeting with surprising success.
“You think that's suspicious, check this out. 'Rouge Fires Consume Appleton Factory and Appleburg Farms'. Not only was nearly every apple factory and farm destroyed within the space of only a few months, but the sole producers of Apples in Equestria were Sweet Apple Acres and a small, local business owned and run by none other than the Rich family.”
“Don't suppose they're in on it too, do you?”
“Well, normally I'm skeptical of things like this, but this is just too perfect to be coincidence. Look at this, the Rich family proceeded to buy up most of the destroyed businesses throughout Equestria, making them one of the largest producers of secondary apple products there is!”
“Not just the largest, Flash, the only. Any farms not secured on private cloud banks off of Cloudsdale seem to be targets and even those seem to be targets of rouge whirlwinds every now and then by the looks of this.”
The sudden development of details was astounding to both. Quick was amazed he might actually be right, and Flash was amazed such awful things could go by unnoticed to this day. Flash quickly produced one of his miniature cameras and began snapping pictures of the documents.
“Oh my, check here, Flash. This one's only a few years old. Says a suspicious barn fire claimed the lives of both of Sweet Apple Acres owners, Anita and Golden Delicious. Their accidental deaths left Applejack and her family the sole beneficiaries of a massive life insurance policy which was used to expand the farm.”
“Sweet Celestia, you don't think Applejack would have done something like this, it's just too awful to image.”
“Flash, for generations this 'Applecore Syndicate' has been systematically wiping out every apple salespony across almost all of Equestria and has apparently amassed a massive grip on the economy here as well. I wouldn't put anything past the intentions of anypony when so much money is involved.”
“This is too much, Quick, we have to take this to the police.”
“The police? Don't you think the police might already be in on this by this point?”
“There has to be somepony around here we can trust!”
“Well we can certainly trust that these ponies are bound to be out to kill us now.”
By this point the two suddenly realized they had escalated to shouting at one another. The sudden epiphany left both staring at each other in silence, even more so when they became aware of somepony else breathing heavily behind them. Both Quick and Flash slowly spun around to find themselves face to face with another pony garbed in a black body suit marked with an apple patch on the flank and an equally black balaclava covering all but a pair of startlingly green eyes.
“I suppose you're here for us.” Quick said, breaking the silence.
The masked figure replied with a nod and stared at both of them. It produced a single apple from a pouch on its flank and held it up for both to see.
“This about the apples right?” Flash said sheepishly.
The pony replied only by slowly crushing the apple between its hooves, watching as the juices slowly ran out and spattered on the floor.
“I figured as much,” Quick replied, suddenly realizing this wasn't going to end well, “any bright ideas now, Flash?”
“Only one.” Flash said, quickly glancing back at Quick.
“Well it better be good and it better be fast, because I think this pony is running out of patience.”
The masked figure was now closing in on the pair who were pressed up against the desk, all they could see was illuminated by Flash's horn and a small moonlit shaft from where they had entered.
Just as the pony was about to bear down on them, Flash suddenly released his light spell and the room plunged into total darkness and for a split second, all Quick could see was the green eyes staring back at him from the darkness.
Flash thought back to his youth, he had spent his entire life as a young and aspiring photographer. His entire family had gained infamy for their artistic talents, from sculpting to painting, music and literature. Supposedly he had some relation to a famous cellist here in Ponyville and could always remember his parents comparing him to various relatives who had succeeded in their various trots of life. But he had taken up photography, the 'lowest of all art forms' as he recalled his father saying with great disappointment, as he paced the halls and eyed the many portraits of famous ancestors that adorned their Trottingham home. It was almost like a palace, and he was to be some sort of prince as he recalled from his younger years before he found his passion in life. They had always hoped he would become a great artist some day, and put him on some sort of pedestal as if he were slated to be something special. But still his father paced back and forth, between those great portraits and busts, all produced from the very hooves that he was being compared to. But he had to be a photographer, who, as his father put it, 'took the easiest path to capturing still life'.
“A sculptor has to envision is statue and slowly carve it out, piece by piece, and even a wax sculptor must take his time to ensure perfection. A painter must make only the most calculated of strokes, choosing the most refined of colors and paints. But you, son, a photographer. What shame this brings me you cannot begin to understand. All you ponies do is find something interesting and press a button and call yourselves artists like us. If you wish to bring shame to our family name, we will not stand for it any longer. Leave this place now and seek your fame and fortune in photography, as I'm certain you will find that none exists.”
It had been a crushing blow, to be insulted so greatly, and by his own father no less. Other family members had been far more forgiving, even offering him a home elsewhere in Equestria, though it never really helped save him from the pain he had felt. Everywhere he went he felt the shame his father had forced him to see, making his own special talent feel more like a curse. Every time he tried to pursue photography, he always came so close to success, even with Photo Finish herself, who said he had great talent, but yet he always held back, and she could clearly see it. So he left, and he left again, from place to place never truly finding a place where he could be happy with his skills.
And now, some dark clad pony out for his still-beating heart was about to keep him from ever finding his place in the world. Mustering all his strength, he tried the one spell he had promised his father he'd never use again.
Within a space of time no greater than a single second, Flash released a blast of light so intense that it left the room feeling well lit for any pony near enough to see it. Of course this excluded the figure who had been staring directly at it, who was now stumbling backwards in a blinded confusion.
“Horsefeathers! Is that why they call you Flash?” Quick yelled, still rubbing his eyes.
“No, they called me Flash because of how fast I ran from a schoolyard fight!” Flash yelled back, having already bolted out of the room.
“I'll have to remember to thank you for this!” Quick yelled, following after, looking over his shoulder to see if the mysterious pony had resumed its pursuit.
“Yeah, well save it for later, we have to find a way out of here and fast!”
By this point the two were approaching the front door and were about ready to crash through when the two guards stepped into the doorway, blocking their exit.
“You didn't think we'd go by this entire time without hearing all your shouting, now did you?”
The gruff guards barely had time to finish their textbook responses before Quick and Flash had ground to a halt and taken off in another direction.
“We'll have to find another way out, Flash.”
“No duh, Quick, but where? This place has only one way out, and that's the front door!”
Quick suddenly lowered his voice and ducked into a dark corner.
“Then we'll just have to hide. Flash, in here!”
Flash could barely see where Quick was motioning, his own vision blurred from the spell. It appeared to be a small storage closet, but nopony would ever have known it was there unless they had known it existed previously.
“How did you find this, Quick?”
“Spotted it on the way in, now get in here and be quiet!”
The closet was dark and cramped, being already nearly full with cleaning supplies and tools for various chores around the archives. Outside, the hoofsteps of the guards could be heard frantically scampering across the tiled floors.
“They couldn't have gotten far, there are only so many places to hide around here.”
“I told you we should have locked the agent in with those two, leaving the door open was a stupid idea.”
“Well how was he supposed to get out?”
“Oh I don't know, through the same door he used to get in?”
“Hey, don't blame me, I didn't quite feel like leaving a pony-cidal maniac locked in with those two with even the slightest chance of being mad at us when he got out.”
“How do you know it's a he?”
“I dunno, I just figured, why would they send a mare to do a stallion's job ya know?”
“Well we wouldn't need to be sending in an agent if you hadn't scared those two out of eating their poisoned sandwiches.”
This comment left Flash staring at his saddlebag where the very two sandwiches in question were still wrapped.
“Yeah, well none of this would have mattered if you had just pushed that cart a little sooner! 'Oh, let's wait for them to stop and smell the daisies'.”
“Yeah, well what about the rest of the ponies on the other teams? Clearly this isn't all my fault if just one pony could do their job right.”
“Ah just shut it already and help me check over here, maybe they hid in the storage wing.”
“I told you so, they've been out to get us all day! We're running out of time, Flash, we need to think of something fast.” Quick whispered urgently.
“I can't see a thing in here, let me see if I can get a little light.”
“Ow, did you just kick me?”
“No, I think you just bumped into something here on the floor. I can't quite figure out what it is though. There we go!”
A dim light brought the room into a clearer view, illuminating dozens of brooms, buckets and barrels of cleaner. In the center of the room was a rug covering a rather conspicuous lump.
“What is that, Quick? You must have kicked it pretty hard, it looks like it's loose.”
Flash pulled the rug aside and was surprised to see a small brass handle connected to a wooden door below.
“Where do you think it leads, Quick?” Flash asked urgently.
“Out, and that's all that matters right now!”
Quick grabbed the handle with his hooves and yanked the door open revealing a carved out passageway below. The walls were moist and lined with crude bricks that looked quite a lot older than the archives themselves.
“Well, I've got the light, so I suppose I'm first in first out.” Flash didn't waste any more time and climbed down into the hole.
“I'm shutting this thing behind us and covering it back up with the rug, go on ahead. If we're lucky, Flash, they won't notice it in the darkness and we're home free!”
“Yeah, that's if this place leads anywhere and if they don't follow us in and catch us.”
Without any more conversation, the two set off down the damp, dark passageway for what felt like an hour. When they were certain that nopony else was following them (as hoofsteps would have echoed for miles down there if it weren't for a fast silencing spell urged out by Quick's adrenaline) the two finally slowed their pace and began to take in their surroundings.
“Wow, Quick, this tunnel looks incredibly old. It must go back to some of the earliest years of Ponyville, just look at the age of these stones. They're all hoof laid too!”
“I don't know how old they are, but you're certainly right, Flash, these tunnels are ancient! Hey, I don't suppose it would hurt if we compiled a quick recording here, do you?”
“Good idea, Quick, I guess that's why you're the lead reporter. I did manage to catch a quick snapshot of the pony from the archives though, thank goodness for these micro cameras. Hold on while I set this thing up and mount it on my back, we're going to have to walk and talk.”
Flash produced his folding video camera from his pack and assembled it in midair, resting it gently on a fold-out harness which connected rather snugly to his back.
“Alright, ready to go live in three- two-”
“This is Reel Quick, your EU on-the-spot reporter for all of your deepest and darkest secrets here in Equestria. This time the secrets are quite literally deeper and darker than you could imagine, taking us to secret underground passages here in Ponyville. Who would have guessed that these corridors have been standing beneath the streets of everyponies' favorite market town without anypony being the wiser. It is believed that these passages may have been used by gangsters and bandits back in the early days of Ponyville's founding when a small gang of highway robbers formed a pact with local apple merchants to help corner the market on apples. Thus the Applecore Syndicate was born and since then has kept a tight hoof on all apple growths throughout all of Equestria, taking out any pony daring enough to stand in their way. Here at EU, we're bringing you all the facts, and we won't rest until this organization is uncovered and brought to justice!”
Quick released his breath and wiped his adventurous look off his face again.
“That will have to do for now, I hope it's convincing enough for viewers.”
“Convincing? Well despite being complete and total speculation, I'd say you could raise an army with a speech like that. I'm shocked, Quick, I haven't seen screen time like that since your early works.”
“I never took you for a pony who'd have taken the time to watch my old films. I thought the quest for Starswirl's lost research cabin would be a total flop.”
“Total flop? Quick, you uncovered ancient scrolls of major historic value. Come on, they're on display in Canterlot for Celestia's sake!”
“Yes, they're on a fancy shelf, but nopony who goes to see it well ever take the time to remember the expedition that spent seven long months trekking through the Badlands for a cabin carved into a rock face.”
“Whether they remember you or not is one thing, Quick, but making a discovery of historic and lasting significance; that's what really matters!”
“I guess you're right, I shouldn't be on this great quest for my own greatness. This shouldn't be about me. I have to go back to doing things for the reason that started me on this journey in the first place. I'm doing this for Equestria, right? I'm doing this so that ponies can come and go with a little more peace of mind than before.”
“That's the spirit, Quick, that's the reporter I remembered.”
“I thought you barely knew me?” Quick suddenly replied.
“I, err. Um, nevermind, we'll talk about it later.”
All the while, the two stallions had been traveling down the same stretch of tunnel nonstop. Every inch looked identical to the last and to the next, with no end in sight. They had to be miles away by now, and were beginning to wonder if they'd die down there, either from exhaustion or from starvation. Neither had eaten all day, and the thought of the poisoned sandwiches in Flash's bag was sounding a tiny bit inviting at this point. Better to die with a full stomach than an empty one, Flash had thought briefly, before shaking the temptations out of his mind for good. To be totally safe, he removed the sandwiches and tossed them behind.
“Good riddance, and hopefully one of those goons will choke on it too.”
“Hey, Flash, I think I see another staircase up ahead!”
“Really? I can't wait to get out of here.”
“Yeah, I just hope there's nopony on the other side thinking the same thing.”
“We'll have to bust out of here together then, we might be able to catch them by surprise. Ready, Quick?”
The pair galloped towards the stairs and launched bodily at the wooden trapdoor sealing the tunnel shut. The door gave way immediately and splintered behind both of their combined impacts, sending a shower of wood chips out in all directions, as well as a spray of hay from the pile sitting on top of it.
Both Quick and Flash immediately assumed what they imagined to be a combat pose, and were ready to take on all masked marauders lying in wait.
But nopony was there, and the dark room they had emerged into so suddenly was immediately silent again after all the debris had floated to the ground.
“Well, I guess that's that, then.” Quick stated, as they had just completed a monumental task of some sorts.
“Hey, where are we anyways, Quick?”
“No clue, looks like some kind of shed.” Flash replied.
“You don't think Fluttershy-”
“No, Quick, it I'm pretty sure this has absolutely nothing to do with Fluttershy.”
“Hey, I'm just saying.”
“Do you always jump to conclusions about things?”
“Only when it's convenient, Flash, only when it's convenient.”
“Well, quit joking around and help me find a way out.” Flash ended the conversation by illuminating the room as much as he could, shedding light on a large set of double wooden doors on the far end of the shed.
“Well as long as nopony lights this place on fire, we should be safe, Flash.”
“Don't give anypony any ideas, Quick, let's just open-these-doors. Ugh, they won't budge. Looks like there's a bar on the other side.”
“Who would bar a shed from the outside?” Quick asked.
“Who would bar a shed from the inside, Quick. It's just a storage shed.”
“Yeah, a storage shed with a passageway for who knows how long that connects to the archives. Now let's break this door down already.” Quick immediately flipped around and began bucking at the massive wooden doors, which shuddered with each blow.
“Couldn't you just lift the bar with your magic or something?” Flash said flatly.
“Oh yeah, good point.” Quick replied with a slight blush. “Guess all this adrenaline is getting to my head, I haven't had this much action in months!”
Quick focused in on the wooden bar through a crack in the door and began to lift it gently from it's position when it suddenly lifted off on its own and slid to the ground with a heavy thud.
“Way to be subtle, Quick.”
“Hey, that wasn't me, somepony else must be on the other side.”
The wooden doors slowly creaked open and a familiar mare stepped in.
“What in the hay are y'all doin' in mah apple shed?”
Both stallions gasped dramatically.
“Applejack!?”
Bathed in moonlight and looking just as surprised to see Quick and Flash as they were to see her was none other than Applejack. A more observant pony would have taken note of her disheveled mane and sleep-reddened eyes and taken her for a common farmer who had simply been woken by an awful ruckus going on outside in the dead of night but to Quick, who had spent the past twenty-four hours being hunted down, the sight of his target was as deadly as an encounter as he could imagine.
“Yeah, ah'm Applejack, and this here's Sweet Apple Acres, our farm. Just what in tarnation are y'all doin' out here this late at night? Are y'all out to steal our apples?”
Applejack appeared to be getting more and more irate every second and the dumbfounded reporters weren't doing much to offset her anger. Finally Quick spoke up.
“Well, err, we could ask you the same thing.” He was obviously at a loss for what to say.
“Quick, this is her farm, we're the ones who aren't supposed to be here.” Flash then turned to Applejack and, carefully picking every word to avoid any further conflict. “I'm sorry for the disturbance ma'am but we have no idea how we got here. We were exploring those tunnels back there and found ourselves locked in. When we got out we found ourselves-” he paused again, noting how absurd it would sound “inside your shed.”
Applejack eyed both of them, not sure of how to respond.
“What tunnels? We ain't got no tunnels in that shed, ah'm certain of it.”
Quick finally found his nerves again and spoke up.
“Of course there are tunnels in your shed! How else would you sneak across Ponyville at night and how else would you have known how to cut us off before we got out safely!”
Again Applejack was short for words and began to open her mouth to reply when Quick cut her off, gaining speed and confidence.
“And naturally you'd want to stop us before we could gather enough evidence to bring you and your gang to justice for the crimes you've committed against pony-kind. You didn't think you could get away with having killed so many apple merchants, burning down those factories and farms and committing massive insurance fraud by killing your own parents?”
This was clearly the wrong choice of words, leaving Applejack staring back wordlessly with tears welling up in her eyes.
“Uh, Quick, I don't think we can accuse her of anything right now.” Flash interjected meekly.
“Of course we can, who else could possibly be behind this? Certainly not Bic Mac, or Applebloom, and Granny Smith is far too old to run this whole setup.”
At this last comment, Applejack snapped.
“How dare you come buckin' your way onto mah farm, accuse me of these awful things and insult mah family. If it weren't for the insurance money we would'a lost the farm to folks tryin' to buy up the land when the deed was lost in the fire. Now git off Sweet Apple Acres before ah have to call for the police!”
Applejack was livid and it was obvious that there was not going to be an easy way out of this conflict. Flash was already trying to restrain Quick, and keeping Applejack and him apart wasn't going to be any easier. At that point, it seemed the situation was only going to escalate further, but to everponies' surprise, a fourth voice joined in all the shouting.
“Now that's enough outta you three, what is going on here?!”
The new voice was that of a Ponyville PD officer, garbed in the typical blue overcoat and hat adorned with gold regalia.
“This stallion over here told me there was a bit of a conflict going on in here and I was about to call him crazy until I found you three screaming at each other over something.”
Behind the officer stood a rather shamefaced Big Mac, who refused to do any more than stare at the space on the ground between his two forehooves.
“It's a good thing y'all showed up when you did. Officer, please remove these two from Apple Acres immediately.” Applejack eyed the police officer for a moment. “Big Mac, did you call this here police officer?”
Big Mac responded only by pawing at the ground and avoiding his sister's gaze.
“Alright officer, get these two outta mah sight, ah think ah've had enough for one night.”
Applejack promptly spun around and trotted off back into the darkness with Big Mac following shortly after.
“Ok you two troublemakers, we're going to take a trip down to the station.”
The officer produced a pair of metal hoof-cuffs from one of his jacket pockets and promptly restrained both Quick and Flash. The cuffs chained their forehooves close enough to prevent any bucking or galloping, but left just enough room for an awkward trot. With a nod of his head, the officer led the pair off into the distance across the fields.
“Well this is an awful mess you've gotten us into, Quick.” Flash whispered, trying not to be heard over the clatter of his cuffs.
“Quiet you two, I don't want another word out of either of you until we get there.”
Quick took a look around the fields they were crossing.
“Get where? We're going in the complete opposite direction of Ponyville. Is this some kind of short-cut?”
“I thought I told you to keep quiet!”
Without another word, the three stallions made off at a slow trot. Behind them the sun was finally rising, warming their backs and sending shadows shooting off in towards their destination. Ahead of them, in the distance, lied what looked like a giant fenced off field, though neither Quick nor Flash could make out just what it was. By the time the two were close enough to see it, both of their fears had been confirmed.
Ponyville Historic Cemetary
“We're not going to the precinct are we, officer?” Flash found the courage to ask at last, as the stallion in question slid open the rusted iron gates.
“Gee, we have a regular genius here folks. It's a wonder you got this far without your skulls caving in with the vacuum of a brain you must have. Of course we're not going to the precinct, and I highly doubt you two will be going anywhere else for quite some time.”
The stallion led the two to a large pair of matching tombstones. Quick stared at them and tried to make out the worn etchings.
“Here lies Anita and Golden Delicious, may their seeds grow on elsewhere. Gee, what a wonderful thought. Guess we're joining them or something?”
The officer reached behind the tombstones and produced a pair of rusted shovels.
“You two are going to dig.”
He immediately tossed the shovels towards the pair, who deftly caught them midair.
“And don't be getting any bright ideas now, I have my own way of dealing with you if you decide not to follow along.”
Quick stared back at Flash and nodded, and proceeded to grudgingly abide by the officer's demand.
One scoop at a time, they began to unearth the grave of Applejack's lost parents as the sun stretched higher in the sky, growing steadily hotter and beating down on them.
“It's a shame we can't dispose of the commissioner as easily as you two. He's been on our tails for years, but getting rid of him has been a pain. Ponies would suspect something if he turned up dead in an alley, but if you two just disappear, I doubt anypony will think twice to come looking. Good, looks like you two are almost done.”
At long last, Quick's shovel made a hard thunk as it struck the wooden top of a casket.
“Go on, open it already!” The guard shouted at the two, who were now at the bottom of a sizable pit.
“See what happens to ponies who cross the Syndicate!”
Inside the casket, to both the surprise of Flash as well as Quick were not the bones of two hardworking Earth ponies but rather an assortment of bones, two of which were distinctly pegasi.
Flash turned to Quick and whispered speedily, “Quick, these are the bodies of those pegasi apple farmers who disappeared a few years back, if we don't think of something fast we're going to be stuck here with them too.”
Quick turned back towards the officer at the top of the pit and stared back at him.
“Just what do you intend to do to us, it's two against one, you can't possibly take us both!”
The officer laughed with a sinister undertone and produced a small metal cylinder unlike anything either pony had seen before.
“With this! This fancy little device is something we've been working on for years; and the devs call it a pistol. To sum it up, we take a tiny little metal ball and shoot it at you. Simple, deadly, and highly illegal. Some ponies seem to think they'll revolutionize Equestria, but I think they're crazy. I guess we'll just have to find out, won't we?”
The maddened stallion pointed the pistol directly at Quick and stared intensely.
“So who's first? You, or the stupid gray fellow over there?”
Flash stared at Quick desperately hoping for some kind of plan to formulate in one of their heads.
The guard started laughing again, apparently quite consumed in his position of power.
“Quick, you'd better have a trick up your mane otherwise we're done for!” Flash whispered pleadingly.
“I don't have any new tricks to show this fellow, but maybe an old one might do.” Quick looked back at the guard and stared at the pistol, concentrating on the barrel as hard as he could. “Come on you mule, I dare you to try that thing on me first. I can take anything that deadly without flinching! You think you can better all the other goons who failed to take me down!?”
The guard stopped laughing and stared back, the taunt had worked and he wasted no time in pointing the pistol back at Quick again.
“Very well then, I hope you enjoy your graves!”
The guard pulled the trigger and an explosive bang echoed across the fields.
“Ow! Watch where you're pointing that thing, you could really hurt somepony!”
The officer stared shocked at the very much still living Quick who was rubbing a sore spot on his shoulder where the projectile had struck him. He had been expecting something quite a lot more violent for something so deadly, but the bullet had simply bounced off Quick's body as if it were made of metal.
“Impossible, you should be dead!”
“I told you, I'm nigh indestructible! Nopony can stop the great reporter, Reel Quick!”
The officer posed a moment and yelled back, furious.
“That's a silly name and those will be the last words out of your mouth!”
He pulled the trigger again, producing a similarly loud explosion, but again the bullet simply bounced off Quick's chest like it were a toy.
“What in the name of Apple Core is wrong with this thing?”
The officer shook the pistol rapidly, hoping it something was simply going awry that he could fix. In a fit of rage, he fired the remaining four bullets off in random directions, each one simply bouncing off its unintended target with little or no effect. By the time he turned back to check on his captives, all he could see was a rusted shovel flying at him.
The metal tool collided with the officer's head with a loud clang and left him in a senseless heap on the ground.
“It's called a softening spell, you should look it up sometime.” Quick shouted at the now-unconscious guard, prying apart the cuffs as if they were made of little more than straw.
“My word, Quick, that was amazing! You quite literally cheated death right there.” Flash yelled amazedly.
“Yeah, but that still hurt quite a bit. Let me take care of your cuffs now. Let's get out of here before they get smart enough send more guards to make sure this one actually managed to do something.”
Flash took a deep breath and silently thanked Celestia for his safety.
“That's great, but where are we supposed to go now if we can't even trust the police anymore?”
“That's just it, Flash, we can trust the police! We can trust every single one of them is out to kill us, and one, just one of them, is going to be our ticket to stopping this mess if we can get to him before the Syndicate does.”
Flash remembered what the officer had said about the police commissioner and suddenly responded “Quick, I don't think we have much time. If they could do this much in one day, imagine what they can arrange for us in two? We have to get back into Ponyville and fast!”
Quick and Flash made their way back to the main dirt path that lead back into Ponyville. The path winded off into the distance and the thatched roofs of the buildings of Ponyville's suburbs could be seen dotting the horizon ahead of them with the sun beaming down. It was quickly getting hotter by the minute and all the excitement was taking its toll on the stallions.
It wasn't long before Quick pointed out clouds of black smoke on the horizon. As they neared the source of the billowing tower, Flash suddenly burst out into excited shouts.
“Oh dear, look Quick! That's the inn we were staying at, it's burned to the ground!”
“I can't say I wasn't expecting it, Flash. Those lanterns and haystacks were the perfect accident waiting to happen, and it doesn't surprise me that it did. I'll be the fire started right in our room too.”
Flash was lost for words again, and was beginning to wonder if Quick's paranoid intuition was actually spot on the whole time. This was enough of a excuse to warrant a change in pace. Both reporters set off at a gallop towards Ponyville without stopping to so much as chat with any of the passerbys.
By the time the pair had arrived in the town, the crowds in the street were abuzz. Word of a break in at the public records building, a random fire on the outskirts of town and suspicious intruders at Sweet Apple Acres were only the start of the gossip. There were also rumors of ponies being injured by falling signs, and a two mares were hospitalized after eating some tainted cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner, leaving the owners baffled as to how such a thing could even happen. Not a single pony had time to notice the two stallions pushing through the crowds towards the police headquarters slowly looming ahead.
Neither Quick nor Flash had time to admire the architecture of the grand building, assembled in a similar fashion to the archives, magically sculpted from marble and adorned with golden etchings. The carved reliefs showed various depictions of justice ponified and crushing criminals beneath its iron hooves, but the situation had led the stallions to realize the opposite had been true all along.
Two officers had been on guard and, had Quick and Flash taken a moment of pause to look them over, any pony would have been able to note that these were the same guards who had been posted outside of the archives the previous night. Of course neither the officers took the time to take notice of the two stallions who bolted past them, leaving their hats askew and both rather confused as to what had just happened.
Quick and Flash slammed the precinct doors aside and galloped through the halls. Both had expected to be attacked as soon as they entered, but were surprised to find the majority of the guards in the building were all laying on the ground, out cold. At the far end of the hall, a gruff looking mare was poking her head out of an office door.
“Hey, you two! Get in here, now! I've been expecting you and I don't think we have much time.”
The two wordlessly complied and entered the small office, while the mare closed and locked the door behind them. It was a cramped room and the walls were lined with newspaper clippings. A small light hung above and caused the dust floating about in the room to glitter like stars on a clear night. The cream-colored mare now sitting across a large wooden desk from Quick and Flash sized both of them up. She was dressed in full traditional pony police style, a uniform consisting of a dark blue vest marked with golden buttons and medals, a small gold chain from one of the pockets and bright red epaulettes on each shoulder. A small cap covered her dusky mane and offset her startlingly blue eyes.
“I'm Commissioner Steele and you two must be the cause of all this ruckus.”
Quick looked back at Flash and the two silently agreed to trust her.
“I'm EU Reporter Reel Quick and this is my photagrapher, Flash. You would not believe the trouble we've been through these past twenty-four hours.”
“I can believe it, you two must have really riled up the Syndicate because they've been causing trouble all day. Normally I have to turn a blind eye to the random acts of violence they seem to cause because we can never find proof, and I simply can't trust any of my officers enough to send anypony out to investigate. The bad ones come back empty hoofed and the good ones just don't come back at all. I couldn't trust anypony here anymore, so this morning I slipped some sleeping tonic into the coffee. Knocked the lot of them out cold. You two had better have some really solid info though, otherwise you'll be risking the safety of every pony here in Ponyville.”
Flash was the first to reply.
“You bet we have solid info! Not only did we find secret tunnels connecting the archives, which mind you were heavily guarded, all the way to a shed in Apple Acres, but to top it off, we found, in the graves of the two previous owners of Apple Acres who died in a mysterious fire, the bodies of multiple missing ponies from all across Equestria!”
“This is a serious accusation you two are making. Organized crime is one thing, but murder is another. Can you two take me to these bodies?”
“I think time is running short, but if we hurry, I think we can make it there and back in time to stop the gears already set in motion, Commissioner Steele. It's probably for the best that we get out of these thick crowds before somepony gets the chance to get at us. It's just not safe here anymore.”
“Agreed, so let's not waste any more time chatting about it, you can fill me in on the details on the way there.”
Commissioner Steele unbolted the door and swung it open, revealing the two guards who had waited so patiently for their second chance.
“Lookie at what we have here. Two little rabbits on the run and one big one sneaking out from its hole. Looks like the chase is at an end little bunny, you don't have anywhere else to run.”
The Commissioner stared at the two guards and stopped for a brief moment. She quickly turned her head to look behind her and snapped back to look the guards in the eye and laughed.
“You two have been after those two so long you've forgotten one important thing about the hunt: there's always another way out!”
Without waiting for their reaction, the commissioner turned where she stood and leaped onto her desk, flung apart the curtains on the back wall and revealed a large glass window. Quick turned to see what she was doing and laughed as well.
“I guess the hunt is still on. Looks like you two are going to have to keep up. Again.”
Quick flung the window open and jumped into the back alleyway with the commissioner and Flash following without delay. He immediately slammed the window shut again and yelled back to the guards.
“Come on you two, is this the best you can do? You're going to let a window keep you from your prize?”
Urged by Quick's taunting and not afraid to break a little glass, the two guards charged headlong into the window, only to find it a lot less solid than expected. Rather than shattering, the window flexed under the force of their impact and bounced back like rubber sending the guards flying back out into the hall they came from.
“You're going to have to teach me that softening spell one of these days, Quick!”
“No time for compliments, we have to run and now!”
The alleyway outback was tight squeeze but let out directly into the market crowds. Nopony would have noticed three new faces joining the crowd, let alone recognize them. Using the cover of the crowd to their advantage, the trio pushed onwards towards the next narrow alleyway when Steele pulled them aside.
“We can't keep pushing through crowds like this, the going's too slow and we'll be less and less able to escape in an emergency. If we're heading towards the cemetery out west, we're going to have to take a shortcut through the alleys. Follow me.”
She motioned into the dark corridors that sprouted out from every main path, each one more foreboding than the last. Quick had his apprehensions about heading into each potential trap but was immediately reassured by Steele that nopony would set up such an obvious ambush.
The alley paths led between buildings and on a few occasions into dead ends which had to be bypassed by barging into the nearest back door, shouting “official PPD investigation going on here, nothing to see” and charging out the nearest front door onto the next street.
Considering neither Quick nor Flash had gotten any sleep since the start of their adventure, both were running down pretty fast. The constant galloping pace had left both panting and foaming though neither was about to stop and admit they were completely exhausted.
At long last, after passing by a local blacksmith's shop, they found themselves at the edge of Ponyville's western border staring out onto the grassy fields ahead. The sun was well in the sky now and the ground beneath them was baking from its heat. Off in the distance was a small dark smudge on the otherwise perfectly green hills, this was their destination and it was in plain sight. The only thing keeping them from it was distance.
“Alright boys, we just need to get to that cemetery and I can confirm the evidence while you two can get all the pictures you need for your story. Let's not waste any more time in getting there; every minute we lose is another minute of planning for the Syndicate.”
Flash and Quick knew she was right, but were afraid to admit they could barely stand to run any further. Their goal was just in sight and there didn't seem to be anything out to stop them. Far off in the distance, a small cloud bank had began to drift in front of the sun, its writhing white mass casting dark blotchy shadows on the ground below.
“Looks like rain, Quick!” Flash yelled to his companion who seemed to not notice him over his intense focus on running.
The fields were simply flying by beneath their hooves and it was only a matter of time before they got there. By this time, the clouds in the horizon were now drifting overhead, taking on a slight gray tinge. A deep rumble sounded from above and a single fine drop of rain landed on Flash's muzzle, spraying him in the eyes as he ran.
Drop by drop, the rainfall had slowly become more and more rapid and by now could be classified as actual rain as opposed to drizzle.
“Is this the best you've got?” Quick suddenly shouted at the sky, as if he were expecting someone to be listening.
The cemetery was dead ahead and the rusted iron gates hung wide open. There wasn't a pony in sight and their target was in clear view.
Ahead rested the graves of Anita and Golden Delicious, Applejack's late parents and within it lay the unavenged bones of the Syndicate's many victims.
“Wow, it's all still here” Flash shouted over the rain, which had now turned into a downpour.
“I know, you'd think they would have taken this time to get rid of all the evidence!” Quick shouted back.
“I can't believe it, you guys were telling the truth about all this! There must be at least ten bodies in here!”
By now their voices were being drowned out by the wind and rain which had become torrential.
Flash leaned over the edge of the grave and snapped a few pictures, taking care not to slide into the now-soaked pit. Any false movements could cause the edge to collapse and leave him stuck in a mud pit.
“Quick, come take a look at this! Somepony's left an apple in here!”
Flash had to scream over the rain to get Quick's attention and indeed there was a single apple, soaked and complete resting atop the bones. Steele, who had just moved close enough to see for herself started to pace backwards with concern.
“I've seen this before you two! Apple signals have been used by the Syndicate for generations to warn of danger ahead! The more apple left let other gang members know how dangerous the path was!”
Steele's voice was nearly inaudible over the rush of wind and rain pounding down on them.
“But there's nopony else here! What could they possibly have waiting for us!” Flash yelled back.
To confirm his fears a single siren blared off in the distance. Its mournful cry left both Quick and Flash chilled to the core.
“Steele, what is that siren for?” Quick called across the curtain of rain which was obscuring his vision.
“That's the Cloudsdale emergency weather siren! They use it to signal when a whirlwind gets out of control and escapes the factory!”
“Quick, you don't suppose the Syndicate has connections in Cloudsdale too, do you?”
Quick looked at him with serious concern.
“Flash, I think we need to move and fast!”
“Where can we go? There's nothing around for quite a ways!”
All three ponies looked around in every direction looking for any landmark at all. The sheets of rain had reduced visibility too much to give them a clear shot at Ponyville. Quick spotted a small glow off to the south.
“Over that way, I think that's a light from Sweet Apple Acres!”
“Of all the places, Quick, why there?” Flash replied.
“Anywhere's better than here you two, let's get a move on it before this storm gets any worse.'
“How can it get worse than this?” Quick yelled.
As if in reply, the clouds overhead were now spinning viciously in circles and a small pinprick could be seen forming at the center.
“You had to ask, Quick!” Flash screamed.
Without another word, all three galloped towards the light through the pouring rain and gusting winds. The ground beneath their hooves was getting muddier by the second and every step threatened to pull them into the soggy earth below.
Within minutes, a small but familiar shed was coming back into view. When they finally got close enough to make it out clearly Flash spotted another pony ahead.
“It's Applejack!” He called instantly, getting the attention of both his comerades.
Commissioner Steele called ahead but Applejack didn't seem to hear her over the rain.
Just a short distance behind them, the wind had become a deafening roar and the small pinprick was developing into a fully formed funnel. The twisted mass slowly wormed its way down from the sky as if the very forces of nature were trying to hold it back where it belonged, but it could not be stopped. The tip of the mass finally reached the ground it sought so badly and with a cataclysmic crash sent debris flying out in all directions. The great blackening worm slowly chiseled through the ground beneath it as if it were little more than icing on a cake, carving a trench as it sped towards the barn ahead.
Applejack, who had been sealing up the barns to prepare for the incoming storm was suddenly caught by surprise when two familiar stallions and the local police commissioner came crashing out of the downpour, tripping in the mud and landing at her hooves.
“Ah thought I told you two too keep off mah farm- commissioner, what in tarnation are you doing here with these two?”
“I don't have time to explain Applejack, but there's a tornado coming and we need to get to safety!”
“A tornado!? Around these parts? That's impossible!”
But sure enough the very abomination in question was already pursuing them furiously. Bits of earth and splinters of wood were being torn from their homes and were gathering up into a maelstrom.
“You two said there was a tunnel under this shed? We need to get in now!”
“Are you sure we can trust Applejack?”Quick shouted back.
“If there's anypony in all of Equestria we can trust, it's Applejack. Now let's get down there and quick!”
Flash unbarred the door and flung it open, pointing towards the hay covered opening to the tunnels below.
“Everypony in now!”
Nopony was about to question his directions, and all four filed into the dark tunnels below. The roar overhead was becoming more and more intense by the second and drowned out all other noise.
In the tunnels, the air was thick and moist and all light had seemingly fled to some safer place while the rushing winds and unearthly rumble ahead passed by. There was a deep groan followed by the most awful rending and splintering sound imaginable as the shed above was torn from the ground by the tornado's fury. A pile of debris tumbled down from the sky and funneled into the tunnel entrance, blocking the way. Above the deafening sound of the earth and sky battling over the bits of one another that had been taken was slowly dying away and an equally deafening silence followed. Shortly after the soft pitter-patter of rain resumed and a distant rumble could be heard over the panicked breathing of four ponies trapped in the dark.
“Is everypony alright?” Steele asked at long last, her voice echoing down the corridors.
“Ah think so. Somepony is going to explain what just happened.” Applejack's voice came from some other point in the dark.
“I don't even know anymore. Let me get some light in here” came Flash's voice, followed by a dim flickering.
Flash's light spell whirred to life and a small illuminated circle appeared, casting shadows off in every direction.
“Thanks, Flash. I can finally see. I thought we were going to be trapped down here forever.”
“We're still trapped, Quick, the entrance way has been blocked off and who knows if the other side is still safe.”
“Well I'll be, there really are tunnels down here. How long d'y'all suppose they've been here?” Applejack called out with astonishment.
“Don't know, but now isn't the best time to be chit chatting, we need to find a way out of here.” Flash pointed his beam of light down the opposite end of the corridor, which seemed to stretch on forever.
“Look, Flash, seems like somepony got down here before us.” Quick pointed at a set of muddy hoof prints leading off into the distance.
“Yes, and they're fresh too by the looks of it. Great detective work, Quick, I'd welcome you to the force any day.” Steele began heading off in the direction of the hoof prints.
“Whoever made the prints likely knows where they're going, we'd better follow them.”
“To where? This passage only goes off in one direction.” Flash replied.
Sure enough, the prints led straight down the passageway quite some distance before suddenly stopping at a seemingly random space in the hall.
Quick stared at the hoofprints and squatted down for a better look.
“So the tracks just stop here? It doesn't seem like this pony stopped to wipe their hooves or anything, its as if the tracks just go off into the wall.”
Indeed the prints did lead into the wall, stopping half way through it as if left by some otherworldly specter.
“Y'all don't s'pose a ghost left these tracks?” Applejack asked.
“Ghosts don't leave hoofprints, Applejack. And I can say that from experience too.” Quick responded immediately.
“Well by the looks of this, I'd say there's something on the other side of this wall.” Steele noted, pointing at a small space between the floor and the wall. She pushed Quick aside and began pushing on various spaces on the wall. “Here we go!” She cried with excitement, having found a loose brick.
With a gentle tap, the brick slid into the wall. A deep rumbling came from inside and a space in the wall began to slide inwards and swing aside.
“A hidden door? I wonder how many other secret passages are down here.” Flash began pondering just how intricate these seemingly simple tunnels really were. “This tunnel system could connect all of Ponyville for all we know.”
“Well whoever came through here before us went this way, so I guess we'd better follow if we hope to catch up.” Quick wormed his way ahead and started down another dark passageway. “I think I see something up ahead; looks like a door.”
A simple wooden door was in fact blocking the end of the passageway. It was neither old-fashioned nor was it locked, and the muddy hoofprints continued on through.
“Flash, Steele, Applejack. I think whatever it is that we've been after all this time might be behind that door. If anypony isn't ready to face the truth we might find, I suggest you turn back now, otherwise, be prepared, because the truth has been trying to kill us all day now.”
His statement was met with silent nods from the other three and a simple glance towards Flash reminded him that he'd better get the camera rolling now.
“Film's in and we're ready to record. We're waiting on you, Reel Quick, open the door and let's get this over with.”
Quick took a deep breath and pushed aside the wooden door. He was met with a surprisingly bright light and stepped forward into the unknown.
When he and the others emerged, they found themselves in what appeared to be the model of a picture-perfect Ponyville living room.
“We're still underground, right, Quick?” Flash whispered to his companion.
“I think so-”
A bright yellow stallion appeared from around a corner, his dark brown mane neatly combed aside. A pair of rimmed glasses rested on his muzzle, and his eyes nervously darted between each of the four new faces in the room.
“Oh dear, I was wondering when y'all'd finally find your way here, Applejack.”
Applejack was apparently left speechless. Clearly she knew something the others didn't.
“Applejack, do you know this guy?” Steele asked gently.
“Ah do,” she paused for a moment trying to find the courage to speak up “that's my father.”
“He's Golden Delicious?” Quick finally managed to ask at last. “Aren't you supposed to be dead?”
“Yes, well it's a long story about that.”
A new voice from farther in chimed in,
“Just who are you talking to dear?”
The next pony to enter the room was, at least in Quick's opinion, the most spectacular unicorn mare ever to set foot in ponyville. She was bore a dark crimson coat, which seemed to bear the resemblance to either a perfectly ripe apple, or rather, the gleaming blood on a freshly thrust dagger. She tossed her auburn mane aside and entered the room as well, he friendly appearance melting away the instant she laid eyes on Applejack.
“So you finally found your way here I see. I was worried this day would come sooner than expected, but there's nothing I can do about it. I've been so hard at work trying to keep you lot out of here that I almost forgot just how much easier it would be to simply let you waltz on in and deal with you myself.”
Applejack was at this point entirely stupefied, having just encountered not only one, but both of her long lost parents.
Anita spoke up again, her voice bearing the refined accent of a city-goer, in deep contrast to her husband's rural speak.
“You three have been a thorn in the Syndicate's side for so long I was almost beginning to wonder whether my guards were totally inept at doing anything right, but it seems getting you to follow my little pawn here was easy enough. Come out here dear, let them all know who will be the cause of their untimely ends.”
To everypony's surprise, a shamefaced Bic Mac shuffled out from the same hall, mud clinging to the floor with every step.
“I thought I told you to wipe your hooves before wandering around here again, now get back there and take care of that filth before I have to clean up myself.”
Applejack finally found the courage to speak up again.
“You two have been alive this whole time and never bothered to tell me?”
“Now what good would it do to let 'honest Applejack' in on our little secret. Besides, Big Mac here was far too old to convince otherwise, so we simply had to make him swear never to say anything to you about it. Apparently it worked too well, since he barely says anything at all, I guess he's too afraid to let out the secret, otherwise he knows what will happen if he does.”
Quick decided now was a good time to cut in.
“So you've been behind this the whole time Anita Apple?”
“Oh please, don't call me by such a banal title. I prefer my maiden name: Anita Rich.”
This response left Quick shocked.
“Of course, I should have remembered, you married into the Apple family almost twenty years ago. You caused such a controversy, all the other Apple family members thought you were just after the deed to the farm!”
“And thy were mostly right. In fact, we'd have the deed by now if those do-good lawyers didn't deem Applejack and poor, old Granny Smith fit to inherit the farm, otherwise my nitwit of a brother would have it by now.”
The situation seemed to be at a standstill until Commissioner Steele stepped forward and decided to speak up.
“Well I've heard all I need to. You two are under arrest on the charges of murder, conspiracy, assault, and destruction of public property. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to a fair trial before the royal court and you have the right to rot in jail like the rest of your cohorts we've been rounding up.”
Steele deftly snapped a pair of cuffs around Golden Delicious' and Anita's hooves and stepped back admiring her work. In response, Anita only laughed.
“My word, you Earth ponies really are as stupid as you look. Maybe one of these days you'll figure out these cuffs simply don't work on unicorns.”
“She's right you know” Quick chimed in.
Without another word, Anita cast a simple spell, causing the cuffs to slide off and crumple to the floor. She cast another spell, this time causing a small glowing object to slide out of Quick's saddlebag.
“Hey, that's my journal, give it back!”
Using his own magic, Quick tried to wrest the journal from Anita's grip, but her magic seemed to be quite a lot stronger.
“Another one of Starswirl's little toys. I should have guessed by now that he'd somehow find some way into this. That little wizard has been trying to stop my family for generations. If we hadn't forced him into exile we'd be crawling with royal guards by now, but it seems he managed to strike back at the Syndicate after all these years. My grandfather did say he was nothing but trouble.”
“Give back my journal, now!” Quick shouted
“Why don't you make me?” She goaded with a smile.
“Gladly” Quick focused all his mental energy and spoke clearly “return the journal to me, NOW!”
“You want it so badly, take it!” She laughed, flinging the small book to the ground. With a single magic spark, the book burst into a ring of flames. Quick pounced on the book with both hooves, trying to extinguish the fire, but was left with nothing more than a pile of ashes.
“This is all going so very well. It would have been a lot easier if little Big Mac didn't feel like leaving clues everywhere, but I'll deal with him later. It's so hard to find intelligent work around here these days.”
This last comment left Applejack furious.
“Don't y'all dare insult mah brother!”
Applejack leaped from her previous position and collided with Anita, sending both tumbling to the ground in a heap. Clearly she wasn't expecting such an immediate reaction as the impact caught Anita completely off guard.
“Get off me you little- argh!”
Applejack was in a frenzy, kicking whenever and wherever she had the chance.
Anita finally found a window of opportunity while on her back and, using all four hooves, kicked Applejack offer and clear across the room.
“You four are nothing but trouble today. I think I'd rather have this fight on my terms instead. You might have won this time, but it's far from over. You and your precious 'EU' have invoked my wrath. I'll be back, and don't think this changes anything!”
Golden Delicious had been chained up in the corner the entire time and had watched the conflict rather sheepishly.
“I don't suppose it would hurt to help me out, would it darling?”
“Oh no, I think I've had about enough of you for a lifetime. You and your family are so much trouble. You've never had the backbone to get anything done around here, so I 'don't think it would hurt' to leave you to the police. Farewell 'darling', and don't expect me to visit you in jail.”
With a bright red flash, she was gone, and only a small red haze remained where she once stood.
“Curses, she got away from us, Flash.”
“No worries, Quick, I got the whole thing on tape! We have enough evidence here to put Anita Rich on Equestria's top ten most wanted criminals list. She'll never be able to show her face again!”
“Somehow that doesn't seem to help much.”
Applejack picked herself back up off the floor.
“All these years I thought you were dead, but you've been hiding from the this whole time.”
Applejack's father looked up at her from the ground where he was tied up.
“I'm sorry sugarcube, but this was all your mother's idea, I guess I got myself sucked into it. I know what we've been going was wrong but I hope some day you'll find it in your heart to forgive us.”
Her response was far from expected;
“For nearly ten years now I've thought you were dead leaving us with nothing more than bits to live on and the deed to the farm, which as ah've just found out wasn't even the plan. For all these years I've been raising Applebloom and caring for Granny Smith with Big Mac. Every night until she was finally old enough to accept it, Applebloom cried herself to sleep knowing she'd never see her parents again. What am I supposed to tell them now? Y'all left us, plain and simple, and tried to fill that emptiness with nothing more than money. Maybe I'll forgive you someday, but ah doubt you'll ever be able to forgive yourself. Come on commissioner, we're done with him.”
And so the case slowly dwindled to a close. Any and all active members of the Syndicate left in Ponyville either fled the town or were hunted down and arrested thanks to a codex of names left behind in the underground hideout. Together, Quick and Flash managed to compile quite a lot of footage both of the town and of the various locations they had visited in their journey. Everything was shaping up rather well and it seemed a fitting close to the case. Reports were flying in of arrests all across Equestria of ponies with ties to the Syndicate, especially the weather technicians whose “negligence” led to the formation of a rouge tornado which hit Ponyville unexpectedly.
All seemed well considering the depth of the conspiracy that had just been uprooted, but despite the strength of the evidence against them, a number of suspects managed to escape trial with strong alibis and character witnesses. In total, across Equestria, ponies everywhere were being checked for ties to this organization which, as Celestia herself proclaimed, threatened the very sanctity of peace and justice in Equestria.
Quick and Flash had just settled down for lunch at the same cafe which had so recently tried to poison them. The chef, quite ashamed of his mistake in hiring two suspicious stallions without a proper background check, offered the pair a lunch on the house in return for not publicly releasing the name of his establishment in the report afterward.
“Feels good to finally eat something after all this, Quick. Glad to know there isn't some pony out there trying to poison our every meal anymore.”
“Don't be too sure of yourself yet, Flash. At the first sign of sickness I'm taking you to the hospital to get your stomach pumped.”
“Ha, wouldn't you be afraid the nurses there would try to slip something in the medicine?” Flash replied sarcastically.
“Good point, I'll have to keep that in mind when I write your eulogy.”
“Very funny. So do you think this will get us back into the business again?”
“Flash, if this story doesn't make us famous, nothing will. We've uncovered a scandal that reaches across all of Equestria! They had ties to arms manufacturers that were shut down before they could sell weapons across the world to various other criminals. We stopped a crime wave that could have overtaken civilization as we know it in only two days!”
“Good point, do you suppose they're still active though? The Syndicate, I mean.”
“Naturally. We may have put a big dent in their plans, but I doubt they're finished. After all, if Anita was so important, I doubt she would have had any direct contact with ponies on the outside. Clearly this operation must be a lot bigger than we could have imagined.”
“And what about her threat? Do you think they can managed to strike back at EU?”
“Flash, I don't even know where EU's headquarters are. Nopony does. We submit our stories through remote sources and they publish them to help maintain anonymity when it's necessary.”
Without warning, a purple fireball materialized above Quick's head and dropped down onto the table between the two.
“A letter from EU? Must be important, Quick, you'd better read it.”
Quick glanced at the note and turned visibly pale at the sight of it.
“Attention all EU reporters, this is an emergency notice. An attempt has been made on our facility as well as our very lives. It seems an unknown agency doesn't want us snooping around in their business anymore, which means somepony out there is doing their job right for once. To protect some of our own more closely guarded secrets, I've enclosed a single microcapsule containing a fraction of our stored information. Protect it with your lives. Continue your respective investigations as normal, but be aware that you are all now in grave danger as the information you possess is of the utmost importance. Find each other if you can, keep the capsules safe. I will arrange a meeting with you all as soon as I am able. Be safe, be suspicious. Trust no one, not even your fellow agents, as any one of them could be a spy. I'm trusting you to carry on our work. Good luck!
Signed,
The Lost Quill
Your Equestrian Undeground Chief-in-Staff”
A small metal cylinder fell from the unrolled letter and landed softly on table in front of them.
“This is awful, Quick, we'll have to do something!”
“Agreed, but I don't know where any of the reporters are heading at the moment. I only know where we might find one if we're lucky.”
“A chance at one is better than nothing, let's get moving already. Where are we headed?”
“Flash, we're setting a course for Baltimare!” Quick proclaimed proudly.
“Baltimare? What's out there?” Flash inquired.
“The very story that we were going to have to take, my friend. If we're lucky enough, some poor sod was unlucky enough to get it instead of us!”
“Baltimare it is!”
And so the duo packed away their lunches and made way for another sleepless journey to the eastern shores of Equestria where rumors of a Giant Cockatrice plaguing the outskirts of the Everfree Forest had attracted the attention of EU's reporters. And what of Anita Rich, still at large? Perhaps our heroes will find themselves embroiled in another mane-deep plot.
Find out in the next spine-stiffening adventure where the puns are doubled and action is too while Quick and Flash try to uncover the mysteries set in stone in Baltimare!
Note from the Author (the guy who has been wasting your time)
If you've read this far, you've either skipped the first 42 pages or you have some serious guts. As a result, you should either return to page 1 and reread the whole darn thing to either prove yourself or point out all of its obvious flaws. Thank you so much for reading! I'll be back, and hopefully you will too!